Prerequisites for using Snow Family devices

Before you get started with a Snow Family device, you need to sign up for an AWS account if you don't have one. We also recommend learning how to configure your data and compute instances for use with Snow Family devices.

AWS Snowball Edge is a region-specific service. So before you plan your job, be sure that the service is available in your AWS Region. Ensure that your location and Amazon S3 bucket are within the same AWS Region or the same country because it will impact your ability to order the device.

To use Amazon S3 compatible storage on Snow Family devices with compute optimized devices for local edge compute and storage jobs, you need to provision S3 capacity on the device or devices when you order. Amazon S3 compatible storage on Snow Family devices supports local bucket management, so you can create S3 buckets on the device or cluster after you receive the device or devices.

As part of the order process, you create an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) role and an AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) key. The KMS key is used to encrypt the unlock code for your job. For more information about creating IAM roles and KMS keys, see Creating a job to order a Snow Family device.

Sign up for an AWS account

If you do not have an AWS account, complete the following steps to create one.

AWS sends you a confirmation email after the sign-up process is complete. At any time, you can view your current account activity and manage your account by going to https://aws.amazon.com/ and choosing My Account.

Create a user with administrative access

After you sign up for an AWS account, secure your AWS account root user, enable AWS IAM Identity Center, and create an administrative user so that you don't use the root user for everyday tasks.

About your environment

Understanding your dataset and how the local environment is set up will help you complete your data transfer. Consider the following before placing your order.

Working with filenames that contain special characters

It's important to note that if the names of your objects contain special characters, you might encounter errors. Although Amazon S3 allows special characters, we highly recommend that you avoid the following characters:

If your files have one or more of these characters in object names, rename the objects before you copy them to the AWS Snowball Edge device. Windows users who have spaces in their file names should be careful when copying individual objects or running a recursive command. In commands, surround the names of objects that include spaces in the names with quotation marks. The following are examples of such files.

Amazon S3 encryption with AWS KMS

You can use the default AWS managed or customer managed encryption keys to protect your data when importing or exporting data.

Using Amazon S3 default bucket encryption with AWS KMS managed keys

After the Snowball Edge job is created, and before the data is imported, add a statement to the existing IAM role policy. This is the role you created during the ordering process. Depending on the job type, the default role name looks similar to Snowball-import-s3-only-role or Snowball-export-s3-only-role.

The following are examples of such a statement.

For importing data

If you use server-side encryption with AWS KMS managed keys (SSE-KMS) to encrypt the Amazon S3 buckets associated with your import job, you also need to add the following statement to your IAM role.

{
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Action": [
        "kms: GenerateDataKey",
	"kms: Decrypt"
    ],
    "Resource":"arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:123456789012:key/abc123a1-abcd-1234-efgh-111111111111"
}

For exporting data

If you use server-side encryption with AWS KMS managed keys to encrypt the Amazon S3 buckets associated with your export job, you also must add the following statement to your IAM role.

{
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Action": [
        "kms:Decrypt"
    ],
    "Resource":"arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:123456789012:key/abc123a1-abcd-1234-efgh-111111111111"
} 

Using S3 default bucket encryption with AWS KMS customer keys

You can use the default Amazon S3 bucket encryption with your own KMS keys to protect data you are importing and exporting.

For importing data

{
  "Sid": "Allow use of the key",
  "Effect": "Allow",
  "Principal": {
    "AWS": [
      "arn:aws:iam::111122223333:role/snowball-import-s3-only-role"
    ]
  },
  "Action": [
    "kms:Decrypt",
    "kms:GenerateDataKey"
  ],
  "Resource": "*"
}

{
  "Effect": "Allow",
  "Action": [
    "kms: GenerateDataKey",
    "kms: Decrypt"
  ],
  "Resource": "arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:123456789012:key/abc123a1-abcd-1234-efgh-111111111111"
}

For more information, see Using Identity-Based Policies (IAM Policies) for AWS Snowball.

The KMS key that is being used looks like the following:

“Resource”:“arn:aws:kms:region:AccoundID:key/*”

For exporting data

{
  "Sid": "Allow use of the key",
  "Effect": "Allow",
  "Principal": {
    "AWS": [
      "arn:aws:iam::111122223333:role/snowball-import-s3-only-role"
    ]
  },
  "Action": [
    "kms:Decrypt",
    "kms:GenerateDataKey"
  ],
  "Resource": "*"
}

After this policy has been added to the AWS KMS customer managed key, it is also needed to update the IAM role associated with the Snowball job. By default, the role looks like the following:

snowball-export-s3-only-role

{
  "Effect": "Allow",
  "Action": [
    "kms: GenerateDataKey",
    "kms: Decrypt"
  ],
  "Resource": "arn:aws:kms:us-west-2:123456789012:key/abc123a1-abcd-1234-efgh-111111111111"
}

After this policy has been added to the AWS KMS customer managed key, it is also needed to update the IAM role associated with the Snowball job. By default, the role is snowball-export-s3-only-role.

Amazon S3 encryption with server-side encryption

AWS Snowball supports server-side encryption with Amazon S3 managed encryption keys (SSE-S3). Server-side encryption is about protecting data at rest, and SSE-S3 has strong, multifactor encryption to protect your data at rest in Amazon S3. For more information about SSE-S3, see Protecting Data Using Server-Side Encryption with Amazon S3-Managed Encryption Keys (SSE-S3) in the Amazon Simple Storage Service User Guide.

Prerequisites for using Amazon S3 adapter on Snow Family devices for import and export jobs

You can use S3 adapter on Snow Family devices when you are using the devices to move data from on-premises data sources to the cloud or from the cloud to on-premises data storage. For more information, see Transferring files using the Amazon S3 adapter for data migration to or from Snow Family devices.

The Amazon S3 bucket associated with the job must use the Amazon S3 standard storage class. Before creating your first job, keep the following in mind.

For jobs that import data into Amazon S3, follow these steps:

Before exporting data from Amazon S3, follow these steps:

Prerequisites for using Amazon S3 compatible storage on Snow Family devices

You use Amazon S3 compatible storage on Snow Family devices when you are storing data on the device at your edge location and using the data for local compute operations. Data used for local compute operations will not be imported to Amazon S3 when the device is returned.

When ordering a Snow device for local compute and storage with Amazon S3 compatible storage, keep the following in mind.

Prerequisites for using compute instances on Snow Family devices

You can run Amazon EC2-compatible compute instances hosted on an AWS Snowball Edge with the sbe1, sbe-c, and sbe-g instance types:

All the compute instance types supported on Snowball Edge device options are unique to AWS Snowball Edge devices. Like their cloud-based counterparts, these instances require Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) to launch. You choose the AMI for an instance before you create your Snowball Edge job.

To use a compute instance on a Snowball Edge, create a job to order a Snow Family device and specify your AMIs. You can do this using the AWS Snowball Management Console, the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), or one of the AWS SDKs. Typically, to use your instances, there are some housekeeping prerequisites that you must perform before creating your job.

For jobs using compute instances, before you can add any AMIs to your job, you must have an AMI in your AWS account and it must be a supported image type. Currently, supported AMIs are based on these operating systems:

You can get these images from AWS Marketplace.

If you're using SSH to connect to the instances running on a Snowball Edge, you can use your own key pair or you can create one on the Snowball Edge. To use AWS OpsHub to create a key pair on the device, see Working with key pairs for EC2-compatible instances in AWS OpsHub. To use the AWS CLI to create a key pair on the device, see create-key-pair in List of supported EC2-compatible AWS CLI commands on a Snow Family device. For more information on key pairs and Amazon Linux 2, see Amazon EC2 key pairs and Linux instances in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

For information specific to using compute instances on a device, see Using Amazon EC2-compatible compute instances on Snow Family devices.